Transcription

1 Eating Out Social Differentiation, Consumption and Pleasure Alan Warde and Lydia Martens University of Manchester and Stirling University

2 PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY , USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia Alan Warde and Lydia Martens 2000 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2000 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge Typeset in Plantin 10/12 pt in QuarkXPress [SE] A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Warde, Alan. Eating out: social differentiation, consumption and pleasure / Alan Warde and Lydia Martens. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN (hardback). ISBN (paperback) 1. Food habits England. 2. Restaurants England Social aspects. 3. Consumer behavior England. 4. England Social life and customs. I. Martens, Lydia. II. Title. GT2853.G7W dc CIP ISBN hardback ISBN paperback

3 Contents List of illustrations List of tables Acknowledgements page vii viii x 1 Studying eating out 1 Methods of investigation 6 Theories and themes 9 The organisation of the book 16 Part I Modes of provision 2 The development of the habit of eating out in the UK 21 The commercial mode 23 Institutional catering 35 The communal mode 38 Provision: a summary 40 3 The meanings of eating out 42 Shared understandings of eating out 43 Reasons to eat out: pleasure, leisure and necessity 47 Attitudes towards eating out 52 Eating out and other leisure activities 55 Entertaining 56 Shared understanding and cultural templates 61 Part II Access 4 Patterns of eating out 69 The forming of a habit? 71 Commercial venues: who visits where? 74 On being a guest 86 Metropolitan and provincial patterns 88 The concentration of inequality 89 5 Domestic organisation, family meals and eating out 92 The organisation of domestic food work 94 v

4 vi List of contents Commercial alternatives: substitution, time and money 99 Shared understandings of the meal and the regulation of eating out 102 About family meals and moral panics 105 Domestic organisation, families and commodification 108 Part III Delivery 6 Personal service in public and private settings 117 Service and formality in the restaurant 121 Comparing commercial service and private hospitality 128 Power and informality Last suppers 135 Mapping food tastes 147 Diversity, convergence or anomie? 159 Part IV Enjoyment: the attractions of eating out 8 Eating out as a source of gratification 169 Are customers really satisfied?: a methodological interlude 175 Gratification and the definition of dining out 184 Towards a systematic vocabulary of gratification: a theoretical interlude 184 Elements of enjoyment The enjoyment of meal events 191 Sensuality: pleasure and joy 191 Instrumentalism: satisfaction and achievement 195 Contemplation: entertainment and appreciation 199 Sociality: participation and mutuality 204 The social importance of mutual gratification 207 Simple and compound enjoyment 209 Part V Conclusion 10 Eating out and theories of consumption 215 Events 215 Variety 218 The social consequences of eating out 224 Methodological appendix: data collection and analysis 228 References 234 Index 243

5 Illustrations Figures 1.1 Eating events: at home and away Social characteristics of interviewees Satisfaction derived from eating out Overall rating of last eating out occasion Percentage of respondents liking various aspects of their last eating out experience 172 Boxes 7.1 Sheila s Christmas lunch with colleagues Anne s barbecue at the neighbours 158 vii

6 Tables n2.1 Number of businesses in catering and allied trades, , by groups of the Standard Industrial Classification (1980) 24 n2.2 UK commercial catering sector: turnover n2.3 Expenditure on food and drink eaten out by outlet type, n2.4 Number of meals taken outside the home (per person per week) n2.5 Expenditure on eating out, (households per week) 34 n2.6 Households in UK, , expenditure per week: in total, on food, on food not from the household stock, pounds sterling and as percentage of expenditure 35 n2.7 Respondents estimates of how often they had entertained in the previous year (percentages) 40 n3.1 A working definition of eating out 43 n3.2 Do you consider this eating event eating out? : aggregated responses from twenty-three interviewees 44 n3.3 Nine attitudes towards eating out 54 n3.4 The frequency of engaging in various food and leisure activities (percentages) 56 n4.1 The frequency of eating out in a restaurant, at the home of a family member and at the home of a friend. Associations with socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. Crosstabulations 72 n4.2 Two classifications of type of restaurant eaten in during last twelve months (with percentage of respondents who had eaten in such a resturant at least once) 76 n4.3 Type of commercial establishment visited for the last main meal out 78 n4.4 Standardised regression co-efficients for three models of eating out 81 viii

7 List of tables ix n4.1 Curiosity index: multiple regression analysis results 84 n5.1 Who did various feeding tasks the last time they were done? Couple households only (percentages) 96 n5.2 The male contribution index: multiple linear regression results 97 n5.3 Understandings of eating out and eating in 103 n7.1 Last menus and their diners 138 Ten one-course menus 138 Ten two-course menus 139 Ten multi-course menus 141 n7.2 Number of food items recorded as part of main course during the last main meal out 143 n7.3 Last main meal eaten out: main course 145 n7.4 Last meal: courses eaten and their composition 146 n7.5 Last meal: type of starter eaten 147 n7.6 Communal meals: the home in which the last meal was eaten 154 n7.7 Last meal: how often do you eat a main meal there? 155 n8.1 Satisfaction expressed with various aspects of the last meal eaten on commercial premises or in the home of another person (percentages by row) 173 n8.2 Alternative strategies for diners in the face of dissatisfaction 178 n8.3 Percentage of respondents who would complain if served an unsatisfactory meal in a restaurant 178 n8.4 Gratification: a typology 187 A1 The quota sample 232

8 1 Studying eating out There has been an explosion of social scientific interest in food in the last decade. Nutritionists, social policy advisors, anthropologists, agricultural economists and historians have always studied food habits, though for different reasons. However, before the 1990s general social scientific interest in the practical, social and cultural aspects of food was minimal. For a sociologist, the field consisted of a stuttering debate on the nature of the proper meal and its role in domestic organisation (e.g. Douglas, 1975; Douglas and Nicod, 1974; Murcott, 1983a and 1983b; Charles and Kerr, 1988), a few occasional essays on exceptional behaviour like vegetarianism, health food shopping and children s sweets (Twigg, 1983; Atkinson, 1980; and James, 1990, respectively), and Mennell s (1985) major, largely neglected, historical comparison of the development of food habits in Britain and France. This situation had changed markedly by the time of writing, with the publication of a series of literature surveys and textbooks (e.g. Beardsworth and Kiel, 1997; Bell and Valentine, 1997; Mennell et al., 1992; Wood, 1995) and of research monographs and essays (Caplan, 1997; Fine et al., 1996; Lupton, 1996; Marshall, 1995; Murcott, 1998; Warde, 1997). One indicator of the growth of interest in food was the Economic and Social Research Council s programme The Nation s Diet: the social science of food choice, which began in We undertook one of the sixteen projects. We designed a survey and undertook semi-structured interviews in order to analyse the contemporary patterns and the symbolic associations of eating out and to relate those patterns to social and demographic characteristics of households. We reasoned that eating out has serious implications for any comprehensive understanding of the nation s diet. Eating out, for instance, throws into sharp relief narrow concerns with food as merely a means of subsistence, for eating out seems to be expanding as a form of entertainment and a means to display taste, status and distinction. Also significant is the willingness of people to swap their private domestic food provisioning arrangements for commercial or communal alternatives. Upon that issue hangs the future of both one of 1

9 2 Eating out Britain s largest industries and a major buttress of that troubled institution, the family. At the outset of this investigation there was almost no systematic social scientific research on the nature and experience of eating out. After the project began the National Food Survey (MAFF, 1995, 39 92) reported for the first time details about eating out in the UK on the basis of its national sample survey. However, it was more concerned with the nutritional than the social aspects of the topic. Previously only highly inaccessible market research reports and occasional historically oriented campaigning books by food connoisseurs (e.g. Driver, 1983) reflected on the practice of eating out. Yet, Britons increasingly consume their food outside the home. As a proportion of food expenditure, that devoted to eating away from home has been increasing since at least the end of the 1950s. Historical accounts of food provision tend to concentrate either on overall levels of consumption within societies, on questions of poverty and hunger, or on particular foodstuffs, like sugar or tea. Few of the general books on British food habits pay any attention to the commercial provision of meals. Restaurant and café appear very infrequently in the indexes of such works. For example, Burnett (1989) gives a comprehensive overview of changing behaviour in the UK since the Industrial Revolution, showing how differences of class and region influenced types of diet and overall standards of nutrition, and while there are useful short sections on changing patterns of eating out, only a small proportion of a large book is devoted to meals away from home. There is no satisfactory historical account of the catering industry or restaurants, information emerging in passing from Medlik (1972), Mennell (1985), Driver (1983) and Wood (1992b). General histories of food consumption in the USA make more reference to the practice (e.g. Levenstein 1988 and 1993) and, because the habit of buying meals on commercial premises is longer established, America is better served with studies of its historical and geographical diffusion (e.g. Pillsbury, 1990; Zelinsky, 1985). But literature is sparse. Food and its consumption may be examined at several different levels. Depending upon one s purpose, attention may focus on one or more of the following: nutrients, ingredients, dishes, meals or cuisines. Each poses different kinds of analytic problem and generates different kinds of popular concern. The analytic decomposition of foods into their component nutrients engages biologists, biotechnologists, nutritionists and health professionals. Notions of diets, healthy eating, using food to protect against illness depend on the isolation, measurement and understanding of nutrients. Studies of agricultural production and the economics of the food chain, with concomitant regulations regarding the

10 Studying eating out 3 preservation and the purity of foodstuffs, direct attention to ingredients. Some of the most politically challenging issues about food production arise from examining specific food items, for example sugar (see Mintz, 1985; Fine et al., 1996). Hitherto, most scholarly attention has been paid to nutrients and ingredients. Work on dishes has been primarily practical, as the basis of training in cooking, whether domestic or professional. The stock in trade of a genre of popular literature, food columns in magazines and cookery books, are recipes giving instruction in how to prepare dishes. When people talk of cooking it usually connotes combining and assembling ingredients to create a dish. Levi-Strauss s (1966) observations about the symbolic significance of different techniques for transforming ingredients into foods of the differences between roasting, boiling and rotting, for instance has been a major source of social scientific reflection. Also some attention has been paid to recipes and recipe books (Appadurai, 1988; Tomlinson, 1986; Warde, 1997). By comparison there has been far less work on meals, the most clearly sociological topic because a meal presumes social ordering of dishes, rules and rituals of commensality and forms of companionship. Nor has there been much scholarly analysis of cuisine, the realm of general principles governing what is, and what is not acceptable to eat, the bedrock of general meanings attributed to food and eating in different cultural formations (though see Goody, 1982; Mennell, 1985). Wood (1995: 112) correctly observed that theoretical claims arising from social scientific food research far outreach current empirical knowledge. More focused and detailed analysis of particular practices is essential for our better understanding of the myriad aspects of food provisioning. We therefore concentrate closely upon one level, the meal, and one of its forms, meals taken away from home. This is essentially a book about meals out. Sociologists and anthropologists in the UK have operated with a definition of the meal which was formulated as a curious mix of everyday meanings and structuralist analysis. Nicod (1980, see also Douglas and Nicod, 1974), defined a meal as a structured event, a social occasion organised by rules prescribing time, place and sequence of actions... (and which)... is strictly rule bound as to permitted combinations and sequences (quoted in Marshall, 1995: 266). A snack, by contrast, has no structure. Structured eating events in Britain, Douglas and Nicod suggested, contained similar elements, but with different degrees of elaboration. Their sparse definition provided the basis for an elaborated, and arguably stereotyped, model of the family or proper meal, whose properties were identified in the course of interviews with households first in South Wales, then in Yorkshire (Murcott, 1982, 1983a; Charles and Kerr,

11 4 Eating out eating out domestic events street food take-away meal at work meal out sandwich or snack subsidiary meal 'proper' family meal tea and biscuits confectionery or ice cream 1.1 Eating events: at home and away 1988). As many anthropologists and sociologists have noted, family meals are structured food events particularly important in social and cultural reproduction (Douglas, 1975; DeVault, 1991). Unsurprisingly, then, predictions of their erosion before social trends like commercialisation, informalisation and individualisation have given cause for concern. Determining whether the habit of eating out is eroding the domestic mode of provision depends very much on how eating out is defined. Prima facie it is the taking of food in some location other than one s own place of residence. In that sense there are a great many eating out events; eating a packet of crisps or fish and chips in the street, as well as a sandwich in the office, a barbecue at a friend s house and an elaborate dinner in a restaurant would count, while returning home with a take-away pizza or a made-up dish from the supermarket would not. Figure 1.1 identifies some of the possible variants. Analyses of contemporary commercial provision of meals out are mostly restricted to estimates of their economic value and prospects for future investment. Many types of organisation provide food in multifarious forms. Restaurants, bistros and cafés specialise in providing food. But for many others food is not their only service or product hotels, public houses, hospitals and motorway service stations are only partly concerned with food and estimating the proportion of their income derived from food is hazardous. In addition, the catering industries include businesses whose purpose is not to provide meals on the premises; the fish and chip shop has been included in various different categories in official

12 Studying eating out 5 statistics over the years. When the economic and social history of the catering trades comes to be written it will not be helped much by official sources. Some indications of the dimensions and trajectory of the industry can be obtained from market research reports, of which there have been a great many in the last twenty years. But they have well recognised limitations: they are commissioned for the purpose of guiding business decisions, mostly exaggerate short-term trends, are not comparable over time, and are also not easily accessible as public documents (Gofton, 1998). Nevertheless they often offer the only available information on the shape and size of particular sectors. By contrast there is an interesting and expanding literature on the nature of work in the catering industries. Studies of the labour process are comparatively well developed, with a little on chefs and commercial cooking (see Fine, 1995a; Gabriel, 1988; Chivers, 1973) and a considerable amount on how serving staff manage face-to-face relations with their clientele. Ethnography, observation and interviews have been effectively used to map the variety of work activities in different kinds of establishments which have developed over the years. The work of waiters in traditional restaurant settings is examined by Whyte (1948), Mars and Nicod (1984) and Gabriel (1988). Marshall (1986), Crang (1994), again Gabriel (1988) and Sosteric (1996) offer insights into the experience of waiting on in less formal settings, including pubs and theme restaurants, since the 1980s. In addition, work in fast food places has been subject to intense scrutiny as exemplary of alienated, routinised, Fordist labour in the service industries (see Leidner 1993, Reiter, 1991). However, from these we learn comparatively little about the impact upon consumers. We know much more about what waiting staff think of their customers than vice versa. That most literature is driven by the concerns of the catering industries rather than consumers is not unique to this field. Social science has typically paid far more attention to production than consumption. Reference to the consumer experience is also mostly in terms of its construction or manipulation by producers. A book by Campbell-Smith, The Meal Experience (1967), is often credited with formalising the marketing insight that there are many factors which influence customer satisfaction with commercially provided meals. The restaurant should be not just a provider of food but a site of a theatre performance, in which the atmosphere, appeal to sensual perception and the character of service were all key elements. A text for the aspiring restaurateur, it concentrated on aspects over which an owner might exercise control. The degree of power exercised by the provider is one issue of dispute in studies of dining out. Wood (1995: 199) endorses Finkelstein s controversial extended account in Dining Out (1989) which attributes considerable power to restaurateurs. Finkelstein s

13 6 Eating out central thesis is that, in modern restaurants, the decor, service and atmosphere are designed in such a way as to relieve customers of the responsibility to shape sociality (ibid.: 5). The regimes of commercial establishments are planned in a way that encourages simulated, rather than genuine, engagement between companions (ibid.: 52). Conventional behaviour in restaurants amounts to accepting an obligation to give a performance in accord with the normative demands of the circumstances (ibid.: 53). Eating out, she says, is incivil. However, Finkelstein s thesis might be criticised for its scant empirical basis, its construction of customers as passive and misguided, and its indifference to the sub-cultural differences of advanced societies (see further, Martens and Warde, 1997). Eating out has both practical and symbolic significance. People eat out sometimes out of necessity, sometimes purely for pleasure. Previous research using the British Family Expenditure Survey had suggested that modes of eating out had become a principal form in which social distinction could be expressed through food consumption (see Warde and Tomlinson, 1995). This implied that eating out had considerable social and symbolic significance for some groups, a circumstance making it worthy of study in terms of theoretical debates concerning the expression of social divisions through consumption behaviour and the bases for differential involvement in public and private spheres. Passing reference to eating out in studies of the social division of taste in North America suggest something similar (Erickson, 1991 and 1996; Holt, 1997a). Recent official data and market research reports in the UK indicate that there are social group differences both in the frequency of eating out and with respect to which venues are frequented. Income, age, region, class, gender and household composition all influence access to eating out (e.g. MAFF, 1997). However, there are many sociological questions about variations in practice which could not be answered on the basis of existing materials, hence our empirical study. Methods of investigation The empirical research involved in the project was designed to examine the symbolic significance of eating out and the relationship between public eating and domestic cooking. It aimed to describe contemporary patterns and the symbolic associations of eating out and to relate these to socio-demographic characteristics of households, their domestic provisioning of food, diet and taste. A second and separate field of empirical and theoretical controversy, about domestic organisation of households, was also amenable to scrutiny via the investigation of eating out. It was anticipated not only that the composition of households would influence

14 Studying eating out 7 their eating out behaviour but also that the experience of eating out might influence domestic habits and tastes. Exploration of eating out, besides supplying the first systematic baseline study of a practice accounting for a substantial and increasing part of household food consumption, promised to illuminate many aspects of contemporary social and cultural practice. Briefly, since methods of data collection and analysis are described in detail in the Appendix, two principal forms of fieldwork were used, semistructured interviews and a survey. The combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is becoming a more common feature of social scientific inquiry and proved essential for this study (Brannen, 1992). As would be anticipated, the semi-structured interviews provided superior data on the meanings and reasoning associated with eating out. The survey allowed estimation of general patterns among urban populations and the opportunity for statistically based exploration of the association between the social characteristics of respondents and their conduct. The two different techniques proved compatible and the results generally complementary. We use the term interviewee to refer to the people involved at the qualitative stage, and the term respondent to apply to those contacted through the survey. The research design entailed two phases of data collection. In the first, we conducted interviews with thirty-three principal food providers 1 in thirty households in diverse circumstances living in Preston and the surrounding area during the autumn of Concentration on Preston, a city in Lancashire in north-west England, with a population of 121,000 in 1991, was opportunistic, but we have no reason to think Preston highly unusual in any respect (see Appendix, p.228). The personal characteristics and household circumstances of each are indicated in Figure Interviewees were asked questions about aspects of eating at home including descriptions of household routines and distribution of food preparation tasks. Questions about eating out included the interviewee s understanding of the term, frequency and reasons for using various places and information details about recent eating out experiences. Discussion was wide-ranging around the key topics and not all interviews addressed each topic in the same depth. In Phase II, 1,001 people were surveyed, using a questionnaire in three cities in England; London, Bristol and Preston. Respondents were 11 A principal food provider is defined, following the work of DeVault (1991: 22) as anyone, man or women, who performed a substantial portion of the feeding work of the household. 12 Names of interviewees are pseudonyms, as are the names of all commercial establishments mentioned in the text.

16 Studying eating out 9 engaged face-to-face in their own homes, interviews lasting on average between thirty and thirty-five minutes. Questions were asked to ascertain frequency of eating out, types of outlet visited, attitudes to eating out, extensive detail about the nature of the most recent meal eaten away from home and rudimentary information about domestic routines. Sociodemographic data was also elicited in order to explore variation by class, income, age, gender, education, place of residence, and so forth. 3 The cities were chosen to offer contrasts of socio-demographic composition and, putatively, cultural ambience. Preston was included partly so that we might compare the survey findings with the evidence of the qualitative interviews, partly as representing a large northern free-standing city without any particularly eccentric characteristics. London was selected in anticipation that its unique features, including its system of supply, would prompt distinctive consumption behaviour, and the two sub-divisions were chosen to illustrate potential differences between central and suburban areas of the metropolis. Bristol was selected as an example of a southern, non-metropolitan city with some claim to be culturally heterogeneous. Since no three cities could be representative of all others in England, these sites were deemed as satisfactory as any. Despite not being a nationally random sample, there is no reason to consider the survey biased in any particular way as a basis for an initial portrait of urban English practice. The survey was undertaken in April 1995 and was administered to a quota sample which matched respondents to the overall population of diverse local sub-areas of the cities by age, sex, ethnicity, class and employment status. Overall, our estimates of current behaviour, based on what people say they do, are derived from data which are more reliable and representative than those which sustain popular and media speculation about eating out. The use of two different methods gives us extra confidence that we can describe with unprecedented accuracy the range of experience of people eating out in England. Our complex data also give us a fair means to evaluate claims emanating from recent social theory about consumption and consumer culture. Theories and themes A service provisioning approach to consumption We approach eating out as a case study of consumption and seek to develop sociological perspectives in the field. Recent sociology of consumption has 13 The data from the survey is lodged at the ESRC Data Archive at Essex University, which holds copies of the questionnaire and the associated technical report from Public Attitudes Survey, who conducted the survey.

17 10 Eating out focused particularly on the consequences of the intensification of consumer culture and the commodification of services previously supplied by the state or household. Despite some significant theoretical developments like Featherstone s (1991) nuanced incorporation of insights from postmodernist speculation within a cultural studies tradition and Fine and Leopold s (1993) exposition of a systems of provision approach deriving from political economy, there remains a need to develop more fully an integrated understanding of the relationship between consumption and production. Arguably, the further theoretical development of the sociology of consumption requires experimentation with new heuristic frameworks as well as more empirical case studies (Warde, 1996). We adopt a service provisioning framework because we believe that it is the most effective way to connect analytically processes of production and consumption (Warde, 1992). The essence of the approach, which is elaborated in the introductions to Parts I IV, is to distinguish between the phases of production consumption cycles involved in the delivery of services and to identify different modes of service provision. We propose that all items consumed, whether goods or services, incorporate a residue of labour and that the form of the labour affects the meaning and status of the product. The vast majority of goods now arrive as commodities, sold in the market and produced by wage labour. But services are provided from many sources, not just through the market by commercial firms, but also by the state, by household members, and by friends and non-resident kin. Such labour is often unpaid. These different modes of provision entail different relationships between producer and consumer, a proposition that might be supported, for example, by reflection on how complaints are lodged. It is also corroborated by consideration of the social relationships that entitle the consumer to receive such services. Typically, money, citizenship, family obligation and mutual reciprocity govern access to services produced in the different modes. A further key element of service provision is its manner of delivery. As regards eating out, the organisation of service (for example, formal, casual or selfservice) and the manner in which interactions between server and served are managed are essential defining aspects of the occasion. The fourth element in a production-consumption cycle concerns the experience of final consumption, the feelings of gratification or discontent which the consumer derives before, during and after the event itself. A phase rarely reflected upon in any detail, we argue that it is central to appreciating the social significance of consumption practices like eating out. This framework permits analysis of key features of any consumption practice and brings to the fore some particularly important contemporary social processes.

18 Studying eating out 11 Recent sociology has concentrated on the market mode, the commercial provision of items which previously had emanated from the state, communal or domestic modes. Substitution between modes occurs constantly, but the reason for concern about temporal succession is that each has different consequences for social relations. The obligations and bonds associated with feeding friends (communal) or family (domestic) are very different from those entailed in market exchange. For example, DeVault (1991) shows how the family meal acts as a vehicle for the socialisation of children, the reproduction of class and gender relations and the reproduction of the institution of the family itself. The commodification of meal provision might systematically transform these social relations. Social divisions Modern capitalist societies have always been characterised by powerful social divisions along the lines of gender, class, ethnicity and region which have often been manifest through differentiated patterns of consumption. Precisely how these operate and how they relate to one another is a major issue for sociology, raising both empirical and theoretical questions. For example, perceptions of time famine, the normalisation of consumer culture and the consumer attitude, limited employment opportunities for immigrant settlers, the changing social status of women and the levels of married women s participation in the workforce, greater travel and daily spatial mobility, intense mass media attention paid to food, and increasing affluence among the population would all be candidates for a multicausal explanation of increasing consumption. Moreover, different types of venue attract different social groups. For instance, French government anxiety about the demise of its culinary traditions is partly generated by the knowledge that young people are increasingly frequenting the fast food outlets of international and national corporate chains (Fantasia, 1995). Other types of establishment also have a clientele concentrated by age group. Previous research has suggested that modes of eating out have become a principal form of class distinction and that the restaurant is a site of strong patriarchal relations (see respectively, Warde and Tomlinson, 1995; Wood, 1990). Moreover, given the way in which domestic food tasks have traditionally been distributed, the benefits and pleasures derived from eating away from home might be expected to accrue more to women than men. Neither would it be surprising if there were some regional differences, nor if the size of a town or city affected the food consumption of their inhabitants.

19 12 Eating out Regarding all these issues, it seems necessary for social scientific purposes to be more precise about the patterns of eating out than has previously been required by market research or official statistics. This is partly necessary because of the proliferation of claims that social boundaries based upon socio-demographic characteristics are collapsing as social groups become less homogeneous. Many argue that such divisions are diminishing though few would claim that they have disappeared. Mennell (1985) argues strongly that social contrasts in food consumption have diminished during the later twentieth century. Contrasts between classes especially, but also between regions, seasons and so forth are, Mennell contends, less prominent. In parallel, market research is abandoning, or at least downgrading, the use of socio-demographic information as a way of identifying and targeting consumer markets, convinced that it is increasingly less effective for the purpose. Such trends challenge traditional sociological orthodoxy which has insisted upon the centrality of class differences in structuring consumption opportunities. The most prominent contemporary expression of such a view is that of Pierre Bourdieu (1984) who argues that styles of life are a primary means of social classification because they express distinctions between classes. Some arguments about the decline of class see other divisions as becoming more important; for instance Shulze (1992) discerns growing generational differences in consumption. Others, however, foresee merely increasing fragmentation, the disappearance of group identification through consumption. One influential version of this diagnosis predicts greater individualisation. Individualisation may be detected when people cease to behave like other people in a similar social position and with whom they share roots and trajectories. Collective norms are less binding, the claims of other people less obligatory. It refers to a process of social uprooting, suggesting processes either of detachment from the group or of much greater internal differentiation within groups. The social origins of individualisation are usually attributed to institutional developments which make trajectories through life less predictable and hence any one s experience is less similar to those of peers. Beck (1992), for example, sees greater insecurity of employment, the erosion of class alignments, renegotiated relationships between men and women and the instability of marriage as developments requiring individuals to take greater personal responsibility for their own futures and well-being. As it is sometimes put, individuals are now obliged to choose for themselves because the comforting guidance and guaranteed support of other people in their social network is no longer available. Consumption, it is argued, is precisely one of the fields in which decisions are taken to differentiate and

20 Studying eating out 13 distinguish one individual from another. Peer groups and social networks afford neither collective criteria of good taste nor confirmation of appropriate behaviour. With fewer collective constraints conduct becomes less likely to reproduce the sense of belonging or group cohesion. Individualisation may manifest itself in many aspects of food consumption. It might be demonstrated by a decline of the family meal, the reduced likelihood of eating with other family members. Members of the same household might adhere to different diets and have more diverse tastes than before. Individualisation might take the form of refusing highly-valued key items of the groups to which one belongs for instance men refusing red meat or adolescents refusing to drink Coca Cola and eat fast food. Perhaps its most extreme expression would be the growth of a tendency to prefer to eat alone. Eating out could encourage more resolute individualised conduct by increasing the potential options as regards food items. It might also increase the range of potential companions. But it does not necessarily do either. Nor does it entail the relaxation of ritual practices surrounding food consumption. The impression that individualisation is a major contemporary trend is much enhanced through the rhetoric of consumer choice. Sovereign consumers are precisely people who can please themselves, choosing what they personally desire without reference to anyone else. Prima facie this is more easily attained when eating out commercially than in any other situation. Only commercial venues generally offer a menu with alternatives from which one can pick a few minutes before eating. It is therefore interesting to explore the extent to which eating out is seen as, or is practised as personal choice, to examine the extent to which individual choice is actually constrained (see Martens and Warde, 1998) and to estimate the effects of group membership on taste. Cultural complexity Culturally, eating is a highly complex activity. The 55 million people in the UK probably each eat about five times per day. There must therefore be approaching 300 million food events per day of which approximately one in ten is away from home (see Table 2.4, below p.33). Viewed in this context, the field might be characterised by widely shared understandings and regularised behaviour. We have few names for meal events and there are comparatively few ways of being fed. Eating is not a field much characterised by eccentricity. On the other hand, eating must fit in with people s daily schedules, material resources, social support, views of food acceptability and so forth. Consequently the practice of eating is inevitably differentiated. This raises difficulties in classifying behaviour, of

Department of Children and Youth Affairs Scholarship Programme Note No. 7 Research Briefing Consuming Talk: Youth Culture and the Mobile Phone 1. What is the study s background? This study was the subject

The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Non-Technical Summary John Creedy The University of Melbourne Abstract This paper provides a non-technical summary of the concept of the elasticity of taxable income,

READING SAMPLE PAPER Market awareness of the mobile telephone has exploded and the retailer who specialises in mobile phones is seeing growth like never before. Admittedly, some customers buy their first

A survey of public attitudes towards conveyancing services, conducted on behalf of: February 2009 CONTENTS Methodology 4 Executive summary 6 Part 1: your experience 8 Q1 Have you used a solicitor for conveyancing

Cambridge IELTS 2 Examination papers from the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street,

TODAY S PRIMARY SHOPPER Society may be radically changing but women still dominate the marketplace Based on an exclusive survey of shopping attitudes by GfK Custom Research North America for PLMA Private

Standard of Healthy Living on the Island of Ireland Summary Report Summary Report: Standard of Healthy Living on the Island of Ireland Summary Report based on Research by: Dr Sharon Friel 1,2, Ms Janas

Guildford Institute Strategic Plan to 2020 Foreword The objects of the Institute are set out in its Memorandum of Association [Art3]. They may be summarised as follows: To promote and advance the education

Cognizant White Paper > Casual Dining vs. Quick Service Key differences from a Process-IT standpoint 1 The Restaurant Industry The Restaurant industry is one of the most fragmented industries that accounted

PAYMENT PROTECTION INSURANCE RESEARCH ANALYTICAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2015 ABOUT COMRES ComRes provides specialist research and insight into reputation, public policy and communications. It is a founding member

Symbolism and Regime Change in Russia During the Soviet period, political symbolism developed into a coherent narrative that underpinned Soviet political development. Following the collapse of the Soviet

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience Dr Emma Casey Kingston University UK Introduction Economic and Social Research Council funded project; Gambling and Households Choice of research method; Mass

Hospitality s work across a huge variety of organisations including bars, restaurants, cafés, conference centres, banqueting venues, hotels and contract caterers. These s generally specialise in a particular

National Qualifications 2015 2015 Sociology National 5 Finalised Marking Instructions Scottish Qualifications Authority 2015 The information in this publication may be reproduced to support SQA qualifications

Poverty among ethnic groups how and why does it differ? Peter Kenway and Guy Palmer, New Policy Institute www.jrf.org.uk Contents Introduction and summary 3 1 Poverty rates by ethnic group 9 1 In low income

Market Structure There are a variety of differing market structures which are separated by the levels of competition that exist within each market and the market conditions in which the businesses operate.

Chapter 10 Advertising and What We Eat The Case of Dairy Products Noel Blisard Two national programs for dairy advertising, authorized by Congress, have concentrated on advertising for fluid milk and cheese.

Managing money online working as well as we think? A behavioural economics study for the Keep Me Posted campaign Prepared by February 2015 About is one of Europe's leading specialist economics and policy

The impact of cooking courses on families: A summary of a research study comparing three different approaches About CFHS Acknowledgements What this is about Community Food and Health (Scotland) aims to

2. Incidence, prevalence and duration of breastfeeding Key Findings Mothers in the UK are breastfeeding their babies for longer with one in three mothers still breastfeeding at six months in 2010 compared

a new anthropology of islam In this powerful, but accessible, new study, draws on a full range of work in social anthropology to present Islam in ways that emphasize its constitutive practices, from praying

Overview The Salvation Army is running projects all over the world, helping provide people with access to small loans or grants, skills training and more to help them get on their feet and work their own

4. Work and retirement James Banks Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London María Casanova Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London Amongst other things, the analysis

ART A. PROGRAM RATIONALE AND PHILOSOPHY Art education is concerned with the organization of visual material. A primary reliance upon visual experience gives an emphasis that sets it apart from the performing

Summary Space in new homes: what residents think Introduction This research summary addresses space standards in new private sector housing and seeks to establish whether residents have enough space to

A New Way To Assess Damages For Loss Of Future Earnings Richard Lewis, Robert McNabb and Victoria Wass describe research which reveals claimants to have been under-compensated by tort This article summarises

VEGETABLES AND FRUIT Help your child to like them A guide for parents of young children Vegetables and fruit: help your child to like them ISBN: 2-7380-1350-3 April 2014 HabEat Project (http://www.habeat.eu/)

Social Epidemiology Insights Into The Drivers of Change in ACC Claims Rates The Social Production of ACC Claim Rates John Wren Principal Advisor ACC Research Grant Pittams ACC Research Manager Key premises

Agenda Item No: 6 Developing a Corporate Health & Well-being Strategy Head of Environmental Services Summary: This report proposes the development of a health & well-being strategy for the Council, which

www.xtremepapers.com UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL EXAMINATIONS GCE Advanced Subsidiary Level and GCE Advanced Level MARK SCHEME for the October/November 2009 question paper for the guidance of

Catalogue no. 89-647-X General Social Survey - 2010 Overview of the Time Use of Canadians July 2011 How to obtain more information For information about this product or the wide range of services and data

Evgeni Stanimirov * Summary: Customer relationship management (CRM) has been among the most widely debated topics in the field of marketing during the last decade. Regardless of the significant interest

An Evaluation of Cinema Advertising Effectiveness Jason Dunnett and Janet Hoek The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of cinema advertising. Specifically: To quantify the proportion

Example Business Plan * Jane Doe of Suavi Restaurant * September 2012 Please note that his business plan is not intended to be used to develop an identical business. The City Wharf Market Plaza is a fictional

Preface A Plea for Cultural Histories of Migration as Seen from a So-called Euro-region The Centre for the History of Intercultural Relations (CHIR), which organised the conference of which this book is

THE ROLE OF MARKET RESEARCH IN THE MODERN SHOPPING CENTRE BACKGROUND Historically, shopping centre developers focused on two areas; capital cost and rental return. There was no real interest in the shopper

Section 2: Ten Tools for Applying Sociology CHAPTER 2.6: DATA COLLECTION METHODS QUICK START: In this chapter, you will learn The basics of data collection methods. To know when to use quantitative and/or

International Examinations Professional Development for Teachers Teaching and Assessing Skills in Computer Studies Stewart Wainwright PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS syndicate OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Cognitive Area Program The guiding principle in the Cognitive Area graduate training program is to involve students from their very first year in the

REGULATION 5.1 HIGHER DOCTORATES, THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, PROFESSIONAL DOCTORATES AND MASTERS DEGREES BY RESEARCH PART A GENERAL PART B HIGHER DOCTORATES PART B THE SCHEDULE PART C THE DEGREE

History Programme of study for key stage 3 and attainment target (This is an extract from The National Curriculum 2007) Crown copyright 2007 Qualifications and Curriculum Authority 2007 Curriculum aims

UMEÅ INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH Master Programme in Public Health - Programme and Courses Academic year 2015-2016 Public Health and Clinical Medicine Umeå International School of Public Health

at McDonald s Careers McDonald s is one of the best known brands worldwide. This case study shows how McDonald s aims to continually build its brand by listening to its customers. It also identifies the

Certification Examinations for Oklahoma Educators (CEOE) Framework Development Correlation Table The Framework Development Correlation Table provides information about possible alignment of some of the

AS BUSINESS Paper 2 Specimen Assessment Material Mark scheme Mark schemes are prepared by the Lead Assessment Writer and considered, together with the relevant questions, by a panel of subject teachers.

Getting the Most from Demographics: Things to Consider for Powerful Market Analysis Charles J. Schwartz Principal, Intelligent Analytical Services Demographic analysis has become a fact of life in market

Video Marketing for Restaurants Restaurants are Using Online Video to Reach More Consumers and Boost Brand Impact Online video is becoming ever more present in consumer life therefore businesses have started

The Right Choice As a dad with young children, I know there are lots of things to worry about when your little one starts school for the first time. Will they like their teacher? Will they make friends?

Report of exchange semester in Manchester Business School Written by Julija Laskovska Background to why you were interested in studying abroad on exchange When a person studies abroad, he or she gets invaluable

Analysis of Employee Contracts that do not Guarantee a Minimum Number of Hours Coverage: GB Date: 30 April 2014 Geographical Area: GB Theme: Labour Market 1. Summary There is no legal definition of zero-hours

GUIDELINES FOR FOOD IMPORT CONTROL SYSTEMS SECTION 1 SCOPE CAC/GL 47-2003 1. This document provides a framework for the development and operation of an import control system to protect consumers and facilitate

The Impoverishment of the UK PSE UK first results: Living Standards David Gordon, Joanna Mack, Stewart Lansley, Gill Main, Shailen Nandy, Demi Patsios, Marco Pomati and the PSE team from the University

Doctor of Clinical Psychology Programme of study for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology 1. The following may be accepted as a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Clinical Psychology: Graduates

Consumer Services The Help to Buy Hopefuls Experian Insight Report January 2014 1 Introduction 2014 is a year when the Government s home-buying initiative, Help to Buy, will be on the minds of many would-be

Evaluation of an Applied Psychology Online Degree Maggie Gale, University of Derby Summary An online questionnaire survey was used to explore the learning experiences of 29 students studying for a unique

National 5 Health Sector: Skills for Work Course Specification Valid from August 2013 This edition: August 2013, version 2.0 This specification may be reproduced in whole or in part for educational purposes